Allen's Personal Thoughts

Cheapest Electricity in the World Got a Whole Lot Pricier

2009-10-15T09:00:00.005+02:00

So, I have no idea how accurate these stats are. They are like estimates built on estimates, multiplied by guesses.

"pws80" (who seems to be an accountant as far as you can tell on a social media site) gives the following list:

2004 - 24.52c
2005 - 26.46c
2006 - 27.81c
2007 - 29,45c
2008 - 39.52c
2009 - 50.04c
2010 - 72.56c
2011 - 105.21c
2012 - 152.55c

It is, according to his calculations, the price per Kwh of electricity now as charged by Eskom.

So, what are the prices of electricity elsewhere?

According to a blog of an ex-UK guy living in Australia:

"Therefore England equals 8.49p per kWh.
……And Australia equals 17.13c per kWh."

and

"In the USA, a kWh is 11.86c (USA)"

Quick conversions of currency with Google:

UK: 95c
OZ: 110c
US: 85c

So, next year, even with the 45% increase, we will still be beating (slightly) the UK, Australia and the US in cheapest electricity. The year after that we will be pretty much in line with the developed world in terms of electricity prices. The next year - we will be about 50% more expensive.

These are rough figures but it would be nice to know at what stage we can take "South Africa has the world's cheapest electricity" off our "Reasons why we love South Africa".

It would be fun also to compare the prices above with "% of average salary"

Drowning in a sea of Web 2.0

2009-09-18T13:23:00.000+02:00

Web 2.0? I've done it.

Blog, got.
RSS, taken care of.
Social? You bet - Facebook, Twitter, whatever.

But now the question is - what for?

I love my Blog and enjoy posting to it (when I can) and I enjoy commenting on other people's blogs.

I like to track things. I like to interact with people online.

But I think it has come to the time when I work out exactly how to do it properly.

My last step in this project will be to have a site www.elucidate.co.za that has everything done by me - comments, statuses, blog postings, etc. And it will be done in a style of my choosing. And it will be tracked by Twitter.

It will be the canonical Allen Baranov.

I started this page about 14 years ago when the Internet was fresh and web pages were made by Real Men with angle grinders and angle brackets. I have updated it from time to time when new technologies came about that made me excited.

Most recently - RSS feeds, Atom, jQuery, Web App APIs.

But now there are online services that can do this kind of thing for me with very little coding (maybe even none!) and I will find one that serves my needs.

The problem with Web 2.0 is that there is usually 2 or 3 of each service and finding just the right one is not so easy.

My quest is to find the right one.

Quick Thoughts About Service

2009-09-01T15:00:00.000+02:00

There are two Vodacom stores in Sandton Central.

One is in Nelson Mandela Square and one is in Sandton City.

I know where the Sandton City store is so I phoned them up to see whether they had something in stock. It was a done deal - I wanted the "gadget" and the price was right. The phone just rang. I tried their other number - it too just rang.

I gave up and phoned the Nelson Mandela Square store and the phone was answered quickly. The lady on the other side was helpful, courteous and a pleasure to talk to. She confirmed that they did, in fact, have what I was looking for.

So, I went to that store and bought what I needed for my phone. While I was there , the staff came up to me and offered help. I felt like a king. I spend a bit more time in the store than I had planned and saw something else that I wanted, at the price that I was prepared to pay. I bought it.

I also looked at a cover for my phone. While there, one of the staff came over, opened up the box that I was looking at and showed me why it was such a good deal. (And it would have been, but they didn't have the cover that fitted my phone.)

On the way out, I popped into the other Vodacom shop and was totally ignored. I walked out.

So, well done to the Vodacom shop in Nelson Mandela Square and not so well done to the one in Sandton City.

If I ever get arrested...

2007-06-08T14:53:00.000+02:00

... I hope I have enough money and power to arrange myself a "medical condition".

Shabir Shaik [1] was referred to the Inkosi Albert Luthuli Hospital in Durban in April, after he spent two months at a prison infirmary, and 83 days at St Augustine's hospital.

Sheriff Baka sent little Miss Hilton home after about 2 days in jail [2] saying that: "The problem here is that there is a medical issue and it isn't wise to keep a person in jail with her problem over an extended period of time and let the problem get worse."

Hi, my name is Allen and I am a Metablogger...

2007-06-07T15:19:00.000+02:00

I thought I had invented the term "metablogger" but I was very wrong.

A quick search on Google shows 9000 hits.

A metablogger is someone who blogs about blogging.

This can be useful in the case of someone writing about how to do effective blog posts, how to write blog software that works or the security risks in blogging personal information.

But I've noticed a tendency of some bloggers to chat at great length about their blogs, which is quite pointless. I do this and I appologise - sorry, hey.

So far in this blog I've done two entries both about it.

*rap over the knuckles*

I'm on my way to recovery and I assure you that the next post will be useful.

First Post! (Again)

2007-06-06T09:49:00.001+02:00

Ok, how did Blogger know?!

When I started my Security Thoughts Blog I took note of how easy it would be to make another Blog if need be.

But then I thought: why would I want that?

Well... I occasionally have thoughts that I'd like to Blog about but don't quite fit into my security blog.

So, they will go here.